The New Fed Carrier

Captain's Blog Stardate 93342.26

When I first saw Cryptic's blog titled "Design Your Ship" I instantly thought this was another competition like the one they did for the Enterprise F (Odyssey). So I took a look (even though I can't draw) and was pleasantly surprised to see it was a voting type tournament for ships that Cryptic has created. At least this way everyone can participate.

So it starts off with eight generic named ships (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Theta, Sigma, Omega) and we get to vote for our favorites. Over the course of two months it gets narrowed down as the designs for the ships are pitted against each other. Eventually we'll be left with one ship which will be the new Federation Carrier. Cool.

I've also heard that if the community enjoys this, then Cryptic plans on doing the same thing for the Klingon Empire and Romulan Republic. Personally, I think this is a great idea because it gives the players the power to essentially design a ship they like. It also opens up the possibility of using other highly voted designs for future ships. Of course from a marketing point of view, Cryptic knows that players who vote for the winning ship will want it, and therefore probably pay for it. Maybe I'm being too positive, but a part of me expects Cryptic to give a version of it away for free like they did with the Odyssey when it first came out.

What I also think is a good idea is the fact that they are writing blog stories that are related to the development of this ship. If you read the first one, you'll see a hint into a special ability this ship will have. To quote the first blog "We can vent the excess high-pressure plasma through the hazard emitters... won’t the plasma ejecta will be extremely volatile... That’s only a problem if you’re a hostile ship." So clearly this new carrier will have some sort of plasma venting ability, perhaps it'll trigger by chance when using Hazard Emitters.